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Talk:List of US military operations
, extraction of troops after an airmobile assault, a burning Viet Cong base camp in Má»¹ Tho, Vietnamese civilians killed by U.S. troops during the My Lai Massacre]]United States' military actions and war crimes of violence against living persons that are unlawful under international law, from the First World War onwards. Invasions, coups, wars and other sustained military actions against states after 1945 without international mandate for exception are illegal under the spirit of international law according to the precedent set by the Nuremberg trials Nuremberg Principles Principle VI (a) (i) : "War of aggression". The International Criminal Court's Crime of aggression covers single isolated instances of attacks, bombardments, armed violations of territory, the giving of permission to other states to use one's own territory to perpetrate acts of aggression and the employment of armed irregulars or mercenaries to carry out acts of aggression. Blockades are acts of aggression although they are sustained. These are also Acts of Agression, crimes under the precedent set by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314 War crimes are "violations of the laws or customs of war"; including but not limited to "murder, the ill-treatment or deportation of civilian residents of an occupied territory to slave labor camps", "the murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war", the killing of hostages, "the wanton destruction of cities, towns and villages, and any devastation not justified by military, or civilian necessity". Incidents in WWII involving desecration of Japanese remains, and other such non-military actions are not listed in the Timeline, but are linked in the See Also section. The numbers dead are rarely large for regime change; comparisons between the importance of the dead and the loss of democratic and socialist governments are unlikely to be uncontroversial, but quite likely to be thought-provoking. The USA engaged in more than 20 covert military actions designed to cause instability in governments in half century between the formation of the early incarnations of the CIA the end of the Cold War, the great majority involving the Special Activities Division (SAD) and Special Operations Group (SOG) of the Central Intelligence Agency. During that period it mounted two full-scale invasions: the Korean and Viet Nam wars. The pace of its actions has increased, and the amount of overt actions increased since then; the US has engaged in closer to 30 military actions in the two decades since the end of the Cold War, and six full-scale invasions: the Gulf War, the invasion of Panama, the bombing of Yugoslavia, the Somali Civil War, the Iraq War, and the War in Afghanistan. After the Cold War, the CIA's role changed significantly, and SAD and SOG forces were increasingly used in overt warfare, while covert regime change was more often carried out by the covert non-military divisions of the CIA, using destabilization techniques (propaganda, paid protestors, bribes, blackmail and threats of government officials, black propaganda and control of the press, etc). One exception is the use of CIA drones in attacks on military leaders in Iraq, which was alluded to by Bob Woodward in a CBS interviewBob Woodward interview on 60 Minutes, discussing his book Enemy Within. "There are secret operational capabilities developed by the military to locate, target, and kill leaders of Al-Qaida in Iraq, insurgent leaders, renegade militia leaders; that is one of the true breakthroughs" (quite a few of the related YouTube videos (example) have an "inexplicable" :) bug that prevents ads from playing, which prevents the vid from playing, so in order to do (almost) all I can to ensure some of them continue to work, I am not going to link to the working ones; just use a combination of the YouTube search terms: Bob Woodward, 60 Minutes, CBS, Enemy Within, and some version of Secrets of the Surge) Another is the ongoing, as of Feb 2011, covert assaults on Iraq by CIA squads begun by GW Bush (junior) and first reported in 2007.More Bad Intelligence on Iran and Iraq Robert Baer 24 May 2007 http://peoplesworld.org/u-s-military-takes-on-honduras/ 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924, and 1925 Timeline Footnotes and non-military interventions * General Smedley Darlington Butler : :"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially [[Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents." * American mutilation of Japanese war deadXavier Guillaume, "A Heterology of American GIs during World War II". H-US-Japan' (July, 2003). Access date: January 4, 2008.James J. Weingartner â€œTrophies of War: U.S. Troops and the Mutilation of Japanese War Dead, 1941â€“1945â€ Pacific Historical Review (1992)Simon Harrison â€œSkull Trophies of the Pacific War: transgressive objects of remembranceâ€ Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S) 12, 817-836 (2006) * Operation Gladio (Wikipedia:Operation Gladio) US intelligence sleeper cells in NATO countries and throughout Europe, established in 1948. Its role in NATO countries' affairs was primarily subversion, the Strategy of tension (WP:Sot) of False flag operations, but its connections to numerous nefarious and malign influences are many,Propaganda Due, Operation Condor, attack on Bernardo Leighton in Rome, 1973 Ezeiza massacre, the 1976 Montejurra massacre and despite numerous investigations by European governments, it never seems to fully go away.Wikipedia:Department of Anti-terrorism Strategic Studies * Tibet, 1950-: It is this author's opinion that seeing the very positive reaction by what has normally been a thorn in the side of the US' neo-imperialism, the UN, to the Tibet issue, was what made the CIA and later the FBI aware of the potential of working both sides of the political divide with astroturf seeding of (from the CIA's perspective) "useful idiots" in human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Nothing like a solid chunk of 'thinking globally and acting locally' for example, to keep the CIA and its operatives from being further outnumbered in the field by aid workers and reporters. And of course if the middle or left can be kept busy pressuring China to reinstate a religious oligarchy (workers schlepping rice up the mountain to the monks in their temples), then so much the better. * Ghana 1966. Bizarrely, after this date, for thirteen years, no one much seems to know or care who ruled Ghana or what party they represented or what countries might have backed them, only summarizing that it was a period of "civilian and military governments alternating with coups". The reason for the historical black out is unclear. But it is possible to find the governments. The CIA coup National Liberation Council gave power to a civilian government, the Progress Party. A military coup took over from them in 1972, and ruled for seven years with a strange mix of military and vaguely communist rule, until yet another military coup forced them out of power in 1979, whereupon the final military leader rose to power to take office in 1981 * Angola, 1975-1980. In a pattern that would be repeated nearly 20 years later, the CIA, armed forces, and Machiavellian foreign policymaker minders of a president newly pressed in the Neocon mold with aw-shucks and gusto to spare, would turn his pet peeves into a policy of crippling warfare and puppet government diplomacy. Reagan sent cheap and effective missile launching systems to take out the helicopters that had given the communist forces an advantage. Namibia's uranium mines were now safe for democracy. :Revolutionary war really is a messy business; left-wing historians ignore death tolls and killing civilians altogether or capitulate to the mainstream view of it being genetically linked to communism. The first step in reducing the bloodshed is understand how and why it occurs, but no. So one of the stories left to history of Angola is tales by a missionary of the godless communists strafing peasants with a helicopter gunship (no mention of how many times more than one that happened, of course). See Angola 1980s on Wikipedia. And of course it is the only story about Angola in the WP article. * Cambodia 1980. Ronald Reagan authorized support for vestiges of the Khmer Rouge to destabilize Cambodia's government, which was strengthened by Viet Namese occupation forces. The coalition called the Khmer People's National Liberation Front, (KPNLF, under Son Sann) was led against the government that had replaced it. Both were Communist, and the Khmer Rouge was universally considered the most bloody regime of the 20th C. After 1.2 million deaths (Admittedly deaths from famine were due in part to the war. But unlike other famines used as boogeymen by many a right wing charge of genocide by socialist governments, the war was a direct result of US warmaking), more than half as many as the notorious Khmer Rouge had killed, the Vietnamese withdrew, and Cambodia's Communist regime fell eight years after the US destabilization began. The US would return to finish the next half of the plan in 1991 * Cambodia 1991. After three years, the US returned to Cambodia. Overtly, with UN support even, they overthrew the very Khmer Rouge government they had backed in 1980-1988.Political transition in Cambodia, 1991-99: power, elitism, and democracy David W. RobertsUN document ID= S-RES-745(1992)Resolution Security Council 1992 Resolution number 745, 28 February 1992. accessdate 2008-04-09 In keeping with their new stance of overt regime change, the invasion was out in the open this time. And during this honeymoon period with the rest of the world, as the conquering heroes that had ousted communism, and in a country that was synonymous with the notorious Khmer Rouge, they even got UN support to oust the very Khmer Rouge they had given arms to in 1980-1988. It took a tortuous 6 years, but 'free' elections were held in 1995, and the country was 'stable' by 1997. -era Greece. Similarities to the logo below are more than coincidence, see Wikipedia:Operation Gladio#Greece]] * Iraq 1973-1975. The CIA had in 1953 toppled a democratic government to install Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as the last Shah of Iran. His father had been the largest supplier of goods to prewar Nazi Germany, and the US colluded with him to finance and arm Kurdish rebels in an attempt to overthrow Iraq's Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr. This started a chain of circumstances that led to the death of hundreds of Iraqis and more Kurds, on top of the deaths in the Iraq and Iran hostilities.Hitchens, Christopher, "The Ugly Truth About Gerald Ford", Slate Iran and Iraq signed a peace treaty in 1975; the CIA support was cut off. :The Shah denied his useful tools the Kurds refuge in Iran, even as many were slaughtered. The U.S. decided not to press the issue with the Shah. "Covert action should not be confused with missionary work," declared Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. * Venezuela 2002. The Department of State report is worded strangely, very much like someone avoiding the truth. :4.â€œDid opponents of the ChÃ¡vez government, if any, who met with embassy or Department officials request or seek the support of the U.S. government for actions aimed at removing or undermining that government? If so, what was the response of embassy or Department officials to such requests? How were any such responses conveyed, orally or in writing?â€ , sponsor of the Regime of the Colonels government (propaganda poster shown above); the more derogatory word 'junta' is sometimes used]] :''Taking the question to be whether, in any such meetings, ChÃ¡vez opponents sought help from the embassy or the Department for removing or undermining the ChÃ¡vez government through undemocratic or unconstitutional means, the answer is no. :Which leaves unsaid whether regime change was attempted through 'democratic or constitutional' means. One also may assume a degree of latitude in the interpretation of that phrase from a person using such evasion. 16 April 2002Inspector General Report, U.S. Department of State * Ukraine, 2004. Orange Revolution (WP): CIA paid demonstrators and pressured government officials. See ref's in Special Activities Division See Post-Cold War covert regime change by the US#Ukraine, 2004 * Lebanon, 2005: On the 5th of March, 2005, the New York Post reported: :U.S. intelligence sources told The Post that CIA and European intelligence services are quietly giving money and logistical support to organizers of the anti-Syrian protests to ramp up the pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to completely quit Lebanon NY Post The Wikipedia:Cedar Revolution followed, and is thus claimed to have been influenced by the CIA. stands for the photograph; the hanged man was executed for aiding the Greek Resistance. During this period, the Resistance cause attracted communists in large numbers, reaching a peak of 50,000; the anti-communists were attracted to the collaborationist Security Battalions, and never comprised more than 12,000 of Resistance members.The Withered Vine: Logistics and the Communist Insurgency in Greece, 1945-1949 Charles R. Shrader, 1999, Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 978-0275965440, pages 23, 26, 31 The US began backing all resistance groups in order to oppose the threat of Nazism, but their fear of communism was too strong, and soon the US ceased funding any resistance groups other than anti-communist ones. In 1948, President Harry S. Truman authorized the pre-CIA Office of Policy Coordination to support aid to Greek anti-communists in cooperation with Britain's Secret Intelligence Service. The US Army Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) also provided personnel]] * Palestinian Authority, 2006-present (Wikipedia:Battle of Gaza (2007). After winning Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, Hamas and Fatah formed the Palestinan authority national unity government in 2007, headed by Ismail Haniya. In June 2007 Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip and removed Fatah officials. The ICRC estimated that at least 118 people were killed and more than 550 wounded during the fighting in the week up to June 15.Gaza-Westbank â€“ ICRC Bulletin No. 22 / 2007, AlertNet. Retrieved June 16, 2007. :In May 2007, US officials promised to continue funding a $84 million aid package aimed at improving the fighting ability of the Abbas Presidential Guard loyal to Fatah.U.S. training Fatah in anti-terror tactics, San Francisco Chronicle, December 14, 2006Diplomats fear US wants to arm Fatah for 'war on Hamas', The Times, November 18, 2006Israeli defense official: Fatah arms transfer bolsters forces of peace, Haaretz, December 28, 2006Israel, US, and Egypt back Fatah's fight against Hamas, The Christian Science Monitor, May 25, 2007 :In the April 2008 the journalist David Rose suggested that the United States collaborated with the Palestinian Authority and Israel to attempt a coup on Hamas, and Hamas pre-empted the coup.The Gaza Bombshell, Vanity Fair, April 2008 Hamas Foreign Minister Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahar has echoed this view, and called the arming of Fatah by the United States an "American coup d'Ã©tat". 16 April 2008 * Venezuela, 2007 See Operation Pliers :Venezuela claims that a confidential memorandum (concerning Operation Pliers) from the US embassy to the CIA revealed and circulated by the Venezuelan government on November 26, 2007 provides details on the activity of a CIA unit engaged in clandestine action to destabilize the forth-coming national referendum and to coordinate the civil and military overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Venezuela.James Petras, "Counterattack as Fateful Referendum Looms: CIA Venezuela Destabilization Memo Surfaces," Counterpunch, November 28, 2007. The memo shows the US Embassy spending $8 million dollars in propaganda alone. See Also * Nuland-Pyatt phone call * Seven countries in five years * United States of America * Cold War covert overthrow of governments by the US * Post-Cold War covert regime change by the US * US military operations in the 20th and 21st centuries * private military corporations * Iranian coup d'Ã©tat of 1953 * Imperialism Pool/History * United States of America and state terrorism * Wikipedia:List of war crimes * Wikipedia:List of successful coups d'Ã©tat * Wikipedia:List of countries by proven oil reserves * Wikipedia:List of countries by oil production External links *Twentieth Century Atlas - Death Tolls *What People Are Saying - Not the Enemy *Data from William Blum book, "Rogue State" supplemented by casulty data from various sources *Statistics of American Genocide and Mass Murder - R. J. Rummel *U.S. Interventions - 1945 to the Present William Blum *Timeline of United States military operations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia *Covert U.S. regime change actions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia *History of U.S. Military Interventions since 1890 by Zoltan Grossman Citations Category:Act of aggressionCategory:Chemical weaponsCategory:Crime of aggressionCategory:Foreign relations of the United StatesCategory:ListsCategory:Geneva ConventionsCategory:International relationsCategory:Nuclear weaponsCategory:United States military scandalsCategory:US state terrorismCategory:Wars for Inequality Category:USA military actions